Nothing exciting happened today, so I'll just write about what I did. In the morning, I taught my first class of the day, which was uneventful, then walked to the small shopping area near my dorm.

Last week, one of my students shared her snack with me. In her lap, she had a plastic bag full of different colored sunflower seeds. I'd never seen colored sunflower seeds before, so I asked about them. My student gave me some to try, and they were sweet and delicious. I'd been thinking about them since then, so this morning, I bought some at the store my student directed me to. It was a candy, nut, and seed store -- the kind where all the treats are in plastic containers and patrons scoop whatever they want into plastic bags and pay by weight. They're very popular in China.

I went back to my room, played around on the internet, and ate more sunflower seeds than I ever have in one sitting

. My tutoring student's mom called to say she needed my help finding a well-known English story or fairy tale, along with a few short jokes and tongue twisters, so that my student could practice for his upcoming English contest. It took longer than I thought it would to find stories, jokes, and tongue twisters that were appropriate for a young audience, appropriate for a Chinese audience, and not too difficult for my student to remember and recite.

Before I knew it, it was time for lunch. I ate Japanese instant noodles (they're better than the Chinese ones), cheese, and crackers. After lunch, I left to teach my second class. Just as I was leaving, Charles called to say that because of the language barrier, he failed to get bus tickets for our trip to the Nanjing airport tomorrow, so I told him I'd ask Wu Yue if he could take me to the ticket office.

During the break in my class, Wu Yue texted to say that he was busy, so I decided that we'd just take the train to Nanjing instead of the bus. The upside of the bus is that it goes directly from Zhenjiang to the Nanjing airport. The train goes to the center of Nanjing, and the airport is 30 minutes away. But since we'll have plenty of time tomorrow, whether we get to the airport by bus or by train and taxi doesn't really matter.

When I got out of my class, I walked back to the store I bought the sunflower seeds from and bought a Coke and a bag of gummy bears.

I took a taxi to the train station, ate my snack while relaxing with the windows down in the back seat, bought tickets for 5:37pm tomorrow, then doubled up with a young girl and took a taxi back to campus.

The story, jokes, and tongue twisters I sent to my tutoring student's mom weren't satisfactory, so I spent a little time finding new ones. After that, I wanted to take a nap but realized it was too late in the afternoon (nearly 5pm), so I forced myself to stay awake. I played on the internet some more, ate some more sunflower seeds, walked to the back gate to get dinner, came back up to my room, and ate my la bread, barbecued grass and green beans, and ji rou chao mian.

Now, I'll take a shower, Skype with my mom, read a little, and go to bed.